


the water's sweet but blood is thicker

by vintageAerith



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blind Character, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Reunion Sex, Spoilers, as close to endgame plot as it gets, post-Chapter 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 19:16:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9286121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintageAerith/pseuds/vintageAerith
Summary: Ignis works for ten years to prove himself to the one person in the world who will always have him exactly as he is.Chapter 14 PWP. Obvious plot spoilers.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deathrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathrae/gifts).



Tragedy, he thought, would’ve been to have never seen at all.

How else could he preserve the images of faces, colors, places he knew, and stand a hope of understanding new sights told to him in words and appreciating it all the same.

But then, knowing that the darkness had been pulled like a pall over the places the sun favored…the clear waters on the warmer coasts, the time of day on one very certain hilltop when every leaf became dappled with gold to offset deep green…well. Perhaps it was better not to think about it. The pall over his own eyes had captured blinding sunlight at the last instant, held it in memory like a broken projector, until the day he’d dare to test himself.

He wondered if the rest of the world had thought to savor the last few days that he could not.

Ignis had opened his right eye around a year ago. (Not around. Exactly four hundred eleven days past. It seemed his mind had found ways to keep busy, to fill in the gaps.) His heart had jolted when the nothingness broke into a different sort of nothingness, moving to a sort of lighter impression, only shifting again when he felt Prompto’s knuckles against his temple, gently pushing him to face his left instead.  _ You’re staring right into a light bulb, you’re gonna hurt yourself. _

His left eye was harder, scar tissue making it more like trying to open a maw between wooden planks than between eyelids. He shut it again, hastily; the greyness had not even made an attempt like it had in his other eye. He must’ve made a noise of frustration, because he felt Prompto shift his weight to his other foot next to him, felt the fret radiating off him like a pulse. But then, a shadow isolated itself in his right eye, and his heart leapt when Gladio’s voice boomed precisely from the place he would have guessed.

The hard part was over.

“Well?”

“It will do,” Ignis had said, with finality.

Those four hundred and eleven days had passed quickly, his mind daring to allow him to lose count of the steps between the armory (the cafe) and the communications office (the garage), trusting the microscopic shifts in value in his perception, only the final confirmation to his senses filling in the rest. He imagined sunny days; the heat of the fluorescent lamps or unseasonably warm noons made it convincing enough, and it wasn’t as if he could witness the slow degradation of Hammerhead around him. As far as he knew, it was still all shiny chrome, red shimmer vinyl stretched over booths, mirages on the flatlands across the road from the food trucks.

He’d take different routes, rounding the back of the restaurant and skirting different arrangements of wooden ammunition crates by the day, allowing himself one misstep before he’d backtrack and start all over again. There had been a poorly-placed hose near the gas pumps once; Cindy had spent all evening talking his ear off, making him some kind of sweet, strong alcoholic tea, so scandalized that she had tripped up his careful operation (quite literally) with a  _ dang waterhose _ . And then there was Prompto, who shadowed him nearly everywhere; the day he’d witnessed Ignis cut a Leiden potato into perfect paper-thin shavings while looking squarely at nothing, he’d clapped Ignis so hard on the back that his glasses nearly fell into a bowl of herb marinade. And, to his credit, he’d followed him around much less often after that.

Far less often, in fact. Another two years had passed before it occurred to Ignis that the three of them hadn’t so much as split a caravan stay in recent memory. He was gratified, because it meant he was no longer being treated as an invalid, but if he was frank, he missed the small talk. He even missed Gladio’s bad moods. It wasn’t as if there was anything to catch up on--reality was frightfully rigid with the sun gone from the sky--but it had never stopped them.

As with all things, though, things stayed the same until, very suddenly, they weren’t.

Something was happening. The movement of the beasts had become more excited, concentrated around the Vannath Coast. Daemons, who normally kept watch over Hammerhead from a nearby plateau, idly using their broadswords like toothpicks (the sound of which made Ignis sleep with the crook of his elbow over his ear, like nails on a chalkboard), unnerving everyone who entered camp as if they were being primed and seasoned for their next meal, had moved on, casting an eerie calm over the plain. The daemons’ movements had not been agitated in what felt like ages; after all, all they had to do was wait for a caravan of hunters to leave the light-bathed sanctuary bounded in barbed wire to have a target, not to mention, to easily overwhelm.

Ignis didn’t know why, but on that particular day, when Talcott left for his normal patrol, he was not at all surprised when he was out just long enough past his safety window for one of the other hunters to urgently call his truck.

_ He’s back. _

Talcott would be an extra couple of minutes. He’d picked up a hitchhiker near Galdin Quay.

\--

Things had stayed much the same, but not nearly as distinctly as Noctis had.

The voice that had come out of the indistinct, yet unmistakable shape that was the King, was dry and ragged from disuse, but boomed out youthful and clear as a bell. It was refreshing, amongst voices that gradually had gotten lower, gruffer, less-often-used, as if in deference to the oppressive, constant darkness, like keeping quiet while others were sleeping.

Noctis had clapped him solidly on the shoulder in greeting, and Ignis could still feel the weight on his shoulder, knowing the contact was not only out of respect for his sight, but a call back to the casual closeness they’d always had, before even Prompto felt comfortable throwing an arm around him. Ignis tried not to let his sightline hover on Noctis too long, though he was steadily trying to pick out more details through the very slight window of perception that had trickled back. He knew he wouldn’t be offended, but it still felt like too much, somehow.

He did, however, feel the surprise radiating off him when Ignis walked from the old cafe to the table outside the caravan, over two gaslines on the pavement, each hand occupied by a cup of Ebony (Noct’s so sweetened that Ignis could almost smell how pale it was), handing him one and seating himself without so much as sweeping with a hand to confirm the presence of a plastic folding chair behind him.

“Ten years hasn’t changed your preference, has it?” he asked with a quirk of the lip.

“Not at all.” A hand on his arm in brief thanks.

A comfortable evening was spent, the heaviness of impending responsibility and the implications of Noctis’ return all but forgotten. Gladio had soon excused himself to their old camping set on the only patch of grass still remaining inside the barbed wire, out of range of the floodlights, muttering something about it “still being much better for your back” when Noctis took a jab at how early it was. Prompto followed an hour or two later, disappearing to the cafe, where his preference for soft beds had led to him commandeering set of booth cushions before they were scrapped and turning it into his personal crashspace three or four years ago.

Noctis had just finished thrashing Ignis in a round of a childhood card game they hadn’t played since grade school, Ignis’ cards punched through in patterns he could feel with his fingertips, when he heard the telltale yawn.

“Ready to turn in?”

“I’ve slept enough for a lifetime. Not especially.”

Ignis chuckled. “Somehow, I don’t think even that amount could satiate you.”

“Not much can, at this point.”

Ignis swept up the cards, stacking them neatly into the beaten cardboard box where they kept their sets and chips, putting a hand on each knee and finding the edge of the trailer door with his fingertips before stepping up and in. He heard Noctis do the same behind him, and heard a light  _ crunch _ as the flimsy plastic chair tipped backward onto the gravel, and the grunt as he picked it back up.

Ignis stepped further inside, divesting himself of his jacket as he heard Noctis step in behind him, felt the floor rattle as he shut and latched the trailer door.

As he lay the jacket on the small sofa inside, he felt Noctis’ hand close around his arm, and looked up questioningly before he felt himself pulled into a rough embrace.

Noctis held him, vice-tight, trapping his arms such that all Ignis could do was splay his palms on the small of his back, but found himself sighing out in relief, in release.

He was released, but only a little, as Noct pulled back to look at him, so much closer than he’d been sitting outside, the fluffy outline of his hair falling at exactly the height below Ignis’ eyeline that he remembered.

“May I?” Ignis said in a low voice. “It’s...hard for me to know, otherwise.”

Noctis seemed to know exactly what he meant, and didn’t so much as exhale as Ignis pulled off a glove and brushed his thumb across his king’s cheekbone, and down, toward the jaw, feeling the scratch of stubble, then a longer beard. His hair peeked out from just under his ear, longer than Ignis had ever known it to be, as he tracked that hand across the same spots on the other half of Noctis’ face, finally pulling a fingertip over dry lips, shadowed under the same unruly hair he could feel at his chin. He wished fervently that he could see his eyes, but this was more than enough.

Noct’s hand slid behind Ignis’ neck, clocking their foreheads together in a way that made Ignis suddenly very much awake, very much aware, hardly breathing so as not to break the loaded silence. He was suddenly nervous, though he did not know why. This closeness had happened, once or twice before, though he had known better than to think it would lead anywhere. However, Noctis was heading somewhere, and fast, and all Ignis could do was keep up.

He allowed himself to be guided forward, following a magnetism that he’d felt along with the warm breath on his face, not daring to speak even when Noctis forcibly turned him to face away from him, fingertips lightly pulling at the fabric of his shirt. He slackened his muscles, so used to holding at-attention that he didn’t quite remember how, and realized there was silence deep in his chest. No nagging fear that his senses might trip him up if allowed to relax, all because Noctis was solidly at his back.

Ignis allowed himself to be pulled, somewhat sloppily, backward, feeling where the mattress nested in the back of the trailer ended as a defined line against the back of his calves, legs too long to fully make it onto the bed, and Noctis’ hands were all over him. His palms splayed on his chest, his side, and Ignis felt the warmth of ragged breathing close to his ear.

“I gather I was missed,” Ignis said quietly.

“You have no idea.”

Gathered in the king’s arms, Ignis let go of every scrap of tension left in him, letting his eyes drift closed more out of habit than anything else. His head rested back comfortably on Noctis’ shoulder, and he felt him press his nose into the collar of his shirt, breathing deeply. Felt the scratch of stubble against his jaw. For a few minutes, that was all he knew.

Ignis had nearly drifted off when he felt the shift beneath him, reclined against the cushions lining the trailer walls around the top of the bed, cheek to cheek as Noct’s hands wandered down,  _ down _ , fingertips scrabbling slowly but insistently along where his shirt was tucked, pulling it free so he could ghost his knuckles along warm skin. Ignis’ breath hitched, louder than he intended, head tilting back along the slope of Noctis’ shoulder.

The moment they kept going, everything would change. And yet, nothing about this seemed sudden...nor unwanted.

That hand slipped just under the edge of his slacks, past elastic and cotton, and Ignis stiffened, caught fast by Noctis’ other arm draped over his middle.

“Highness--” he managed.

“Not here,” Noct whispered.

Ignis fought to draw another breath without trembling, but it came out in a gust as fingers wrapped around him, and he felt dry lips against the column of his neck.

“ _ Noct…” _

Noctis pumped him slowly, nestling his arm further down so he could reach better, sliding down, then gripping him tighter as he glided upward, ripping an aborted gasp out of Ignis before he could suppress it. It had been so long, years perhaps, and  _ even longer _ since anything between the two of them, and his body was remembering for him.

Ignis fought to keep his breaths steady, mind distracted with the thought of unfastening his button and zipper so as to relieve the unbelievable pressure, the fabric taut and straining against his erection and Noctis’ broad hand sliding deeper with every thrust, but instead, he laid his left hand, lightly, on top of the fabric. He groaned, feeling every strain of Noctis’ knuckles through the fabric; felt himself, hard, the tumult happening beneath. He pressed his palm downward, like he could lace his fingers with Noctis’ through fabric and metal teeth, but the pressure only grew greater, forgetting himself as he bucked up into that hand, working him raw.

Noctis bit down a moan somewhere into Ignis’ shoulder and he turned his face sideways, seeking blindly with only Noct’s equally scattered breaths to lead him, and felt dry lips graze as close to his as they could reach, angled such that they were denied the connection. He realized, dimly, through the haze, that he could feel a hard line in the small of his back, where Noctis was as involved as he was.

Ignis arched backward, matching Noctis’ slow but ever-increasing pace, settling back and pressing, rutting against his hand but aiming behind for that line that would make Noctis moan again. And he did.

“You don’t have to-- _ ah… _ ”

Pleased, Ignis responded with his own sharp exhale of breath, caught in the back of his throat, still working against the hand trapped against him.

“Let me,” Noctis whispered, overcome, against Ignis’ jaw. “Let me…”

Ignis had only just tamped down the urge to let his throat sing out when Noct’s thumb pushed into his slit, spreading the gathering moisture there as he worked him in a circle, and Ignis bent his knees, feet planting against the bed, losing himself in Noct’s quick strokes and tugs as the arm holding him gripped him tighter. When he came, no sound came out, just stuttered breaths as he spilled over, up into Noctis’ hand, onto his abdomen, throwing his head to the side to gasp for breath as the king worked him harder through his peak, pulling spasm after spasm from him until he was spent.

Ignis was almost grateful that he could not see the trailer around him, much more content to be slipping, half-conscious, into the hazy new reality that had settled around what had just transpired between them. Noct rested his head against his, and Ignis turned his face to tilt upward, this time Noct’s lips finding his own, sealing them together at long last, warm and breathless.

He spent a few moments just taking him in, kissing Noctis slowly, languidly, microscopic shifts bringing him to being back on his own knees, bearing down on him, pressing him into the cushions with soft mouths and tongues and murmurs between them. He dragged fingers lazily over Noct’s exposed hipbone, over the spot where he too had come, quietly, keening into Ignis’ ear as Ignis had trembled through his own aftershocks.

“Next time you wander off...” Ignis began quietly, the tips of their noses touching, but Noct cut him off.

“I’m not going anywhere. Not anymore.”

Ignis felt himself pulled down, suddenly very keen to sleep, every line of his body pressed against Noctis.

“Not without you.”


End file.
